“You want it for the children’s sake,
but you don’t think of me?” she said,
quite forgetting or not having heard that he had said,
“for your sake and the children’s.”

The question of the possibility of having children
had long been a subject of dispute and irritation
to her. His desire to have children she interpreted
as a proof he did not prize her beauty.

“Oh, I said: for your sake. Above
all for your sake,” he repeated, frowning as
though in pain, “because I am certain that the
greater part of your irritability comes from the indefiniteness
of the position.”

“Yes, now he has laid aside all pretense, and
all his cold hatred for me is apparent,” she
thought, not hearing his words, but watching with
terror the cold, cruel judge who looked mocking her
out of his eyes.

“The cause is not that,” she said, “and,
indeed, I don’t see how the cause of my irritability,
as you call it, can be that I am completely in your
power. What indefiniteness is there in the position?
on the contrary...”

“I am very sorry that you don’t care to
understand,” he interrupted, obstinately anxious
to give utterance to his thought. “The
indefiniteness consists in your imagining that I am
free.”

“On that score you can set your mind quite at
rest,” she said, and turning away from him,
she began drinking her coffee.

She lifted her cup, with her little finger held apart,
and put it to her lips. After drinking a few
sips she glanced at him, and by his expression, she
saw clearly that he was repelled by her hand, and
her gesture, and the sound made by her lips.

“I don’t care in the least what your mother
thinks, and what match she wants to make for you,”
she said, putting the cup down with a shaking hand.

“But we are not talking about that.”

“Yes, that’s just what we are talking
about. And let me tell you that a heartless
woman, whether she’s old or not old, your mother
or anyone else, is of no consequence to me, and I would
not consent to know her.”

“Anna, I beg you not to speak disrespectfully
of my mother.”

“A woman whose heart does not tell her where
her son’s happiness and honor lie has no heart.”

“I repeat my request that you will not speak
disrespectfully of my mother, whom I respect,”
he said, raising his voice and looking sternly at
her.

She did not answer. Looking intently at him,
at his face, his hands, she recalled all the details
of their reconciliation the previous day, and his
passionate caresses. “There, just such
caresses he has lavished, and will lavish, and longs
to lavish on other women!” she thought.

“You don’t love your mother. That’s
all talk, and talk, and talk!” she said, looking
at him with hatred in her eyes.